Childhood and Early Career
Hingis was born in Košice, (then part of Czechoslovakia, now in modern Slovakia), to accomplished tennis players Melanie Molitorová and Karol Hingis. Molitorová was a professional tennis player, who was once ranked tenth among women in Czechoslovakia, and was determined to develop Hingis into a top player as early as pregnancy. Her father was ranked as high as nineteenth in the Czechoslovakian tennis rankings. Hingis's parents divorced when she was six, and she and her mother relocated around a year later to Trübbach in Switzerland. Her father, who continued to live in Košice as a tennis coach, said in 1997 that he had seen little of his daughter after the split.
Hingis began playing tennis when she was two years old and entered her first tournament at age four. In 1993, 12-year-old Hingis became the youngest player to win a Grand Slam junior title: the girls' singles at the French Open. In 1994, she retained her French Open junior title, won the girls' singles title at Wimbledon, and reached the final of the US Open.
She made her professional debut in October 1994, two weeks after her 14th birthday. She ended the year ranked World No. 87, and in January 1995, she became the youngest player to win a match at a Grand Slam tournament when she advanced to the second round of the Australian Open.
Read more about this topic: Martina Hingis
Famous quotes containing the words childhood and, childhood, early and/or career:
“Childhood and youth are vanity.”
—Bible: Hebrew Ecclesiastes 11:10.
“Adolescence is a tough time for parent and child alike. It is a time between: between childhood and maturity, between parental protection and personal responsibility, between life stage- managed by grown-ups and life privately held.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
“It is so very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (17621835)